Ted Turner - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 4:34 PM, UTC NEWS Writer | Producer | Actor Ted Turner was born on November 19, 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA as Robert Edward Turner III. He is the founder of CNN, TurnerBrodcastSystem(TBS)and TNTnetwork He was previously married to Jane Fonda, Jane Shirley Smith and Judy Nye .He started in the business as a writer and producer but had a bigger vision. See full bio » Born: a list of 71 people created 28 Feb 2014 a list of 25 people created 24 Nov 2014 a list of 2346 people created 02 Jan 2016 a list of 970 people created 11 months ago a list of 7 people created 1 month ago Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage How much of Ted Turner's work have you seen? User Polls 15 wins & 4 nominations. See more awards » Known For - No Horsing Around (1994) ... (original idea - as R.E.

Turner) - Orangu-Tangle (1994) ... (original idea - as R.E. Turner) - Planeteers Under Glass (1994) ... (original idea - as R.E. Turner) - High Steaks (1994) ... (original idea - as R.E.

Turner) 1987 Portrait of the World USSR (TV Movie) (creator) Hide 1998 WCW/NWO SuperBrawl VIII (TV Movie) (executive producer) 1998 WCW Thunder (TV Series) (executive producer) 1997 WCW World War 3 (TV Movie) (executive producer) 1997 Halloween Havoc (TV Movie) (executive producer) 1996 WCW Bash at the Beach (TV Movie) (executive producer) 1996 WCW Uncensored (TV Special) (executive producer) 1995 WCW Starrcade 1995 (TV Special) (executive producer) 1995 WCW Monday Nitro (TV Series) (executive producer) / (supervising producer) 1994 Starrcade (TV Special) (executive producer) 1993 Starrcade (TV Special) (executive producer) 1993 Halloween Havoc (TV Movie) (executive producer) 1992 Starrcade (TV Special) (executive producer) 1992 WCW

 Beach Blast (TV Movie) (executive producer) 1991 Starrcade (TV Special) (executive producer) 1991 Halloween Havoc (TV Movie) (executive producer) 1990 Starrcade (TV Special) (executive producer) 1990 Halloween Havoc (TV Special) (executive producer) 1990 WCW/NWA Capital Combat (TV Special) (executive producer) 1989 Starrcade (TV Special) (executive producer) 1989 Halloween Havoc (TV Special) (executive producer) 1988 Starrcade (TV Special) (executive producer) 1987 Starrcade (TV Special) (executive producer) 1986 Starrcade (TV Special) (executive producer) Whatever Happened to Ted Turner?

| Hollywood Reporter Whatever Happened to Ted Turner? 6:30 AM PST 2/29/2012 by Stephen Galloway COMMENTS Ted Turner The "Mouth of the South" is no longer as he devotes his time (and $1 billion) to the U.N., jets between 28 homes and four girlfriends, misses Jane Fonda and opens up to THR about Rupert, Jerry and his abuse as a child. Says a friend: "He's definitely changed." "Isn’t that the thinnest billionaire’s wallet you ever saw?" Ted Turner gloats on a drizzling day in New York. "I’m really proud of it.” He holds out the wallet, a slender, black, rather unpretentious affair, as this reporter cranes for a closer look, neglecting to mention I’ve never seen a billionaire’s wallet before. It contains Turner’s driver’s license, two credit cards, lists of his appointments for the next couple of days (he doesn’t use e-mail), a few phone numbers and about $1,000 in cash — though what on earth for, he doesn’t say, since he never shops.

The tycoon-turned-philanthropist has removed the wallet from his blazer to show me a printed card with his "11 Voluntary Initiatives," an oddly naive reinvention of the Ten Commandments that he concocted some 15 years ago, including such vows as "I promise to care for Planet Earth and all living things thereon, especially my fellow beings." PHOTOS: Ted Turner's Life and Loves in Photos He leans forward, adamant about reading each one. "Listen, these are important,” he insists. "I worked on them for a long time." It’s a rare burst of energy from this man who once epitomized it. At age 73, there’s almost no trace of the frenetic, hyper-kinetic mogul once known as the “Mouth of the South” and “Captain Outrageous." His antics (from keeping a pet alligator as a student to almost losing his life in a 1968 sailing race) and innovative empire-building (turning a tiny TV station into a nation-spanning “superstation" and launching the first global TV news network, CNN) have made him the stuff of legend, putting his present absence from the media scene in stark relief.

Without him, we wouldn’t have an all-cartoon channel or an all-movie channel — maybe not even cable television itself, with all its glorious target programming, its 24-hour sports, passionate punditry and unreal reality. "He’s a genius," says former CNN president Tom Johnson. "He was exceptionally important in the media landscape. We shall not look upon Ted Turner’s kind again." Even his onetime friend, former Time Warner chief Gerald Levin, who ousted him in a putsch that severed their relationship, acknowledges: “Some people have transcendent notions about changing the world. Ted believed, in his unstoppable fashion, that he could — and did. He was and is maddeningly gifted with a spark of genius.” PHOTOS: 9 Highest Paid Entertainment CEOs Many pundits expected that spark would help him outlast his older rivals (Viacom and CBS Corp. chairman Sumner Redstone, 88, and News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, 80) at the summit of the media.

But unlike them, he has moved on, giving up the executive life to "save the world,” as he puts it, an endeavor that began with his unprecedented $1 billion gift in support of the United Nations in 1997. This, along with other philanthropies he’s launched, has been his mandate for much of the past decade — more than a mandate, a mission. That he made the best choice for the world seems certain; whether he made the best choice for himself is less clear. "He really misses it a lot,” says his daughter, Laura Turner Seydel, 50, chairman of the board of the Captain Planet Foundation, referring to his role at Time Warner. "It was his baby. I think he’d still be there if he’d not totally gotten screwed." ♦♦♦♦♦ Turner goes to bed right after dinner most nights, switching off the light around 9, following an hour of reading. This onetime social gadfly, who hobnobbed with President Carter and Soviet chief Mikhail Gorbachev (whom he still cites as his hero), has a relatively quiet social life. "I have several good friends but not one [in particular],” he says.

"I never think about who are my best friends; they’re all my best friends. I confide on certain things with my family, my close girlfriends, Phil [Phillip Evans, vp and chief communications officer of Turner Enterprises]. I have good relationships with a lot of people. In fact, I don’t have very many enemies, [though] I’ve lost a lot of good friends who passed away." Turner doesn’t pay attention to TV anymore, other than CNN. "I don’t watch entertainment,” he says. As for CNN’s sister network, HLN, "the News and Views Network” featuring Nancy Grace: “I haven’t watched in years. I want to see serious news.” Box Office Politics: The Movies and Stars Dems vs. GOPers Love (and Love to Hate) Instead, he spends an average of an hour and a half each day reading nonfiction — The Economist from cover to cover, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal whenever he can, along with substantive tomes including environmentalist Lester R. Brown’s World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse and Catherine Crier’s Patriot Acts: What Americans Must Do to Save the Republic.

As one might expect from this, he’s hardly devoid of political opinion: "I like Obama. I don’t know who could do a better job. He’s got an incredibly tough situation, and a good heart and mind. I’d like to see him rally support a little better. He’s alienated a lot of people — not deliberately or anything." By contrast, “Certainly the Tea Party people are mean-spirited. It’s so heartbreaking to have [them] say that global warming is a hoax.” After reading, Turner retires. In addition to taking medication for an irregular heartbeat, in mid-2011 he learned he had sleep apnea, a disorder involving abnormal interruptions in breathing. “I’ve had it for years, a rare form; I’m using the [positive airway pressure, or PAP] machine at night, and that’s helped some,” he says. He wakes around 4 a.m., “takes several pills, like most of us," then gets up at 6 and does a light workout. He drives a Prius and adds, "I haven’t been in a store to buy anything for five years" — even clothes. He says all this with little of the flamboyance that was once his mark.

His depleted energy troubles some of the 300 former staffers and executives who remain intensely loyal and who reunited with him for a cocktail reception at Atlanta’s Hilton in November. Several acknowledge the man they found was quite different from the human tornado of the past. “I don’t know if it’s because of what happened at Time Warner or if it’s just getting older,” says one. "But he’s definitely changed." [pagebreak] The reformed drinker, who embarrassed himself after winning the 1977 America’s Cup with a drunken performance at a news conference, no longer touches a drop. "I quit completely a year ago, but prior to that, all I’ve drunk is a glass or two of wine,” he says. “I haven’t been a heavy drinker in years — not even a moderate one. I didn’t like the way it made me feel." He gave up without joining Alcoholics Anonymous: "I never needed to." Turner sees a psychiatrist friend once a month, though he qualifies, "I’m not in therapy; it’s just somebody to talk to." He took lithium for a few years but now blames it on a psychiatrist who wrongly diagnosed him as manic depressive.

What he has, he says, is “a mild to moderate case of anxiety. But I don’t suffer from depression. The word doesn’t exist for me.” He may lack the ebullience of his earlier years, yet Turner shuttles endlessly among his 28 properties — 14 of them ranches with 55,000 bison — traveling hundreds of thousands of miles per year on his private Challenger jet, making numerous speeches when he’s not communing with nature in the "wilderness," as he puts it. With nearly 2 million acres, he was America’s largest landowner until his friend, Liberty Media chairman John Malone, surpassed him. (“He said he was sick of me being No. 1 in land ownership. But he didn’t give $1 billion to the U.N., so he can afford it,” Turner quips.) He retains, according to Forbes, a $2 billion net worth. His energy may be flagging, but some drive keeps propelling him forward, in an unending race to achieve more — or outrun his inner demons. The 2001 departure of Jane Fonda from his life, after a 10-year marriage, may have fueled this.

He admits it shook him profoundly and perhaps contributed to the sense one has of his being emotionally adrift, no matter how vast his accomplishments. Often, during our conversations, he tunnels down a track of his own — spending 15 minutes on his Voluntary Initiatives, for instance — as if his mind is full of his own thoughts and private obsessions. He has replaced Fonda with a new arrangement, alternating among four girlfriends, each of whom gets approximately a week per month of his time. "Pretty much, that’s the general rule,” he says. One, novelist Elizabeth Dewberry (His Lovely Wife), is with him here in New York, where he’s spending some time for U.N. Week. Charming and refined, she assures me in the few seconds we get to speak that Turner is affectionate and fully loving, whatever Fonda’s statements may have implied to the contrary. But Dewberry’s history is almost as complicated as her lover’s: She was married to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler, who wrote a somewhat extraordinary e-mail to his colleagues when she left him for Turner. "She will not be Ted’s only girlfriend,” he mused. “Ted is permanently and avowedly nonmonogamous.

But though he has several girlfriends, it is a very small number, and he does not take them up lightly, and he gives them his absolute support when he does. And Elizabeth’s leaving me is as much about the three weeks a month she is alone as it is about the week a month she is with Ted." Turner doesn’t name the other women in his life. When asked if they are OK with this division of spoils, he hesitates. "Sort of.” He misses intimacy, he says, but recognizes: “I’ve been married three times, and with my background in baseball [Turner owned the Atlanta Braves], I remember the first rule of the game is, three strikes and you’re out. I regret that I wasn’t more successful with my marriages, but it is what it is.” Is he lonely? He pauses. "Maybe a little.” ♦♦♦♦♦ Ensconced in a vast windowless basement at the U.N. for a conference on women and children’s health, Turner appears isolated in the very locus of his passion, even with Dewberry and his colleague Evans at his side. He barely moves, rarely talks.

His deafness contributes to this: He wears two hearing aids and says: "I’m hard of hearing. I miss a lot. It’s really tough." With a mind that still bubbles with invention and an IQ of 128 (“in the 97th percentile," he says), he has turned his unequaled gaze on the nonprofits that have become his abiding love: The U.N. Foundation, established with former Democratic Sen. Timothy Wirth of Colorado as its president to promote the aims of the U.N.; the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which he co-chairs with former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, championing projects such as the conversion of reactors around the globe; and the Turner Foundation, which among other pursuits bestows ecosystem- safeguarding grants. "I’d been thinking about doing something to help the U.N. for a long time,” he explains about the first of these, founded with his $1 billion gift (a third of his then-fortune). "I was really upset and disappointed that the U.S. at that time had trouble paying its bills.

And going back, I was concerned about the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and worried that if there was another world war, it could be the end of civilization. The U.N. had such lofty goals to eliminate poverty and stop war and cure diseases and help refugees — things that no one country could do.” He says this is his focus now and, whatever his daughter’s opinion, he appears uninterested in the media environment he helped build as founder of Turner Broadcasting System and Cable News Network. "It’s been 12 years since I’ve been gone, but if you only had one news network, and there really was only one when CNN was there, would you make it a serious news network?” he ponders. “When you’ve got dozens — or many — then you can go in different formats. You could go right-wing like Fox News, you could go after a segment of the market and maybe you would be more successful than if you were going for the whole market." Looking back, even he admits: “CNN wasn’t perfect. We spent several days when Jessica McClure fell down the well, and we covered O.J. [Simpson] driving around L.A.

But those were such interesting stories." [pagebreak] Now he has sold his shares in CNN parent Time Warner, whose plunging stock price following the AOL merger in 2000 cost him $8 billion of his estimated $10 billion fortune. Other than a solar-energy project he recently developed with the Southern Co. in New Mexico and his chain of 44 restaurants in 16 states, Ted’s Montana Grill (which showcases the bison he breeds), business doesn’t entice him. Except for brief shots across the bows of erstwhile rivals such as Levin and Murdoch, Turner has said goodbye to all things media, where he once reigned and in which role he told his executives to spend “whatever it cost” to cover the Gulf War, refusing to buckle when President George W. Bush called his top news executive and pleaded for him to withdraw CNN’s reporters from Baghdad. Turner only partly regrets his severed friendship with Levin, the man who effectively fired him from AOL Time Warner, as it was known then. "I mean, it’s pretty hard to love someone who fired you, particularly from a job you really liked," he says. “But I don’t hate Jerry.

I don’t even hate Rupert." As for Murdoch: "He should resign or step down" if News Corp. did indeed break the law. "When I was a publisher of CNN, I took responsibility for the actions of the network. If they broke the law by wire-tapping, that’s illegal, [and if Murdoch knew] he’d have to go to prison. If anybody else did, they’d be going to prison." Murdoch’s critics would embrace Turner’s return to the fold, but just when the media needs him most — when he is one of the few people who could challenge his former nemesis (whom he once compared to Hitler) for supremacy, turn the various Housewives and innumerable Kardashians on their heads and maybe even reinvent TV as we know it — he has exited, probably never to return. ♦♦♦♦♦ Ted Turner sprang unformed onto the business stage at age 24, following the death of his father, Robert Edward Turner. The older Turner was a wealthy but brutal patriarch who beat Ted with a razor strap as far back as he can remember.

"In the old days, they didn’t have safety razors, they had straight razors,” he explains, sitting in a bland, borrowed office at his U.N. Foundation’s midtown Manhattan headquarters, the day after the U.N. gathering. "The way you sharpened a straight razor was with a leather strap that was in every barbershop. Not only that, people had them in their bathrooms. It made the knife very sharp — that’s where the phrase came from, ‘razor sharp.' He hit me with the strap." Each time, Ted refused to succumb to his father’s authority, until one day the older man lay face down on a bed, exasperated, and told his son to spank him. Turner, then a child, broke down sobbing. But as tears gushed forth, he refused. "That’s right — I couldn’t,” he says. “Because I loved him." On March 5, 1963, under the influence of alcohol and pills, battling depression and worried about a $4 million purchase that had expanded his Turner Outdoor Advertising into the largest billboard company in the south, Turner senior shot himself dead at age 54.

He left behind Ted and his mother, Florence, a housewife. (A younger sister, Mary Jean, had died from complications of systemic lupus erythematosus, an immune system disease, at age 17.) The suicide shattered the family, but it’s something Ted acknowledges having contemplated too. “I’ve thought about it and decided against it — in the past, not recently," he says. Devastated, he nonetheless seized control of his father’s enterprise. He already had dropped out of Brown University to join the company. Now he made the first of many brilliant moves, using the threat of lawsuits to regain control of assets his father had sold just before his death. During the next few years, he would build on what his father had created and grow the company into a fledgling empire, in a way that bears uncanny parallels to his dark twin Murdoch, a man similarly summoned to take over his father’s business at age 21 when Keith Murdoch died of cancer in 1952. The Murdochs ran newspapers in Australia; the Turners operated billboards in Georgia. But each son took the opportunity to shine.

After consolidating the billboard company, Turned acquired several local radio stations, then made a giant leap with the 1970 purchase of a UHF station. Six years later, he turned it into the country’s first “superstation," with the breathtaking use of a satellite to transmit programming to cable companies throughout the U.S., launching Turner Broadcasting System. What Turner did, says longtime colleague Scott Sassa, now Hearst Entertainment & Syndication president, was create “disruptive media.” At any given time, Sassa explains, executives in power tend to “develop systems and ideas. What Ted did was no different than the Internet: He exploited a newly available technology — satellite — and so changed the order of what happened.” While doing this, Turner married Judy Gale Nye, then divorced; he subsequently married Jane Shirley Smith, only to divorce a second time in 1988, leaving him with five kids whom he cherishes but who have said he was a tough father — certainly an absent one, even if generous. I lived at my office,” Turner explains, especially after he acquired the Braves in 1976 and spent most evenings at ballgames. “That put me on an 18-hour day.

I was never home for dinner.” Turner bought the Braves for more than $10 million, partly to guarantee programming for his burgeoning TV empire. As it grew, in 1986 he made a roughly $1.6 billion purchase of the MGM library for its films (giving him the material to found TNT and Turner Classic Movies) and bought the Hanna-Barbera studio in 1991 (allowing him to create Cartoon Network). But Turner’s most brazen move came in 1980, when he founded CNN. [pagebreak] In 1978, he had pitched the idea for CNN at the Western Cable Show. Several TBS insiders were afraid it would bankrupt the company, especially given that cable reached only about 10 million homes at the time and this meant charging 15 cents per subscriber per month. Total cable fee revenue at first was only $18 million, nowhere near enough to cover the network’s expenses. Advertising sales helped, but not entirely.

On July 1, 1979, having hired two top execs — Reese Schonfeld and Burt Reinhardt — Turner decided to go ahead with the network nonetheless, moving into a former golf clubhouse in Atlanta as headqua rters. He persuaded Daniel Schorr to join him as CNN’s first brand-name journalist, then sold WRET to Westinghouse for about $20 million to keep CNN afloat. Turner continued to hire the best newsmen, who would come to include Lou Dobbs, Bernard Shaw and Wolf Blitzer, and convinced them to follow him to Atlanta. CNN’s prominence today makes it easy to forget that it was almost stillborn — not least when the satellite it required simply disappeared, forcing Turner to mount a life-or-death legal battle to get a slot on another one. Throughout CNN’s emergence, nobody believed an all-news, all-the- time network could function — except Turner.

But he was convinced that audiences wanted a venue where they could find information whenever they wanted, and from the beginning proclaimed his faith in the enterprise, announcing, “We won’t be signing off until the world ends." He never achieved his goal of having a bureau in every major city around the world, but his foreign coverage was unrivaled — and so was his belief in objectivity, even when it led to criticism in the early 2000s that he was showing the Iraqi point of view. "He had a near-fanatical belief that we should be fair," Johnson says. In those years, Turner was at his dazzling best. "He was the most inspirational person I’ve ever worked for,” says Arthur Sando, his longtime marketing executive. “He leveraged everything he had for what he believed in. He was a leader, had a great heart and tremendous vision. He was honest and loyal, with a terrific sense of humor." In October 1996, Turner Broadcasting merged with Time Warner, valuing the former at more than $8 billion, with Turner becoming vice chairman of the parent company under Levin. But Turner was a rare voice of dissent opposing Levin’s desire to merge with AOL.

For the latter (who declined to comment on specifics), this would be his greatest legacy — and later failure; for the former, according to his 2008 memoir Call Me Ted, it flirted with disaster. Against his better instincts — in a way that seems oddly out of character — the executive capitulated and gave Levin the support necessary to carry through his deal. It was the beginning of the end for Turner’s role at Time Warner. As Levin and his new partner, AOL’s Steve Case, restructured the company, they envisioned a reduced role for their associate. "When I merged with Time Warner, I knew there was a fair chance I wouldn’t be there forever, because that’s normally the case: The entrepreneur doesn’t make it through [the transition]," Turner says. Still, it came as a shock in 2000 when Levin called to tell him most of his responsibilities were being reassigned. Technically, he would remain vice chairman until 2003, but, as Turner says in his book, “For the first time in my life, I’d been fired." It is one of the “great mysteries: Why Ted was fired when he was the largest shareholder and unbelievably supportive of Jerry Levin,” Johnson reflects.

Even Turner remains perplexed, as if he hasn’t fully come to terms with it all these years later. “I thought I’d been doing a good job — I’d been Time’s man of the year [in 1991],” he says. “No one else there had been man of the year. They fired the only one who had." The firing marked the conclusion of Turner’s career as a business icon and the commencement of his work as a full-time philanthropist, the work that is central to this third chapter of his life and such a remarkable departure from the young man who set out to make a fortune. Through his foundations, Turner has gone from being the brash businessman and consistent Republican (even when his style seemed distinctly unconservative), to the progressive provocateur able to alienate even the entrepreneurs who most adored him, to the man he is today: tall and ramrod straight, but with a slight stoop to his shoulders as if the world weighs heavily on him; a solitary, almost messianic figure.

His passion to “change the world" led him to consider running for president against Bush the second in 1999 (either as a Democrat or Independent), his daughter says, noting her father planned to set aside $75 million for his campaign, fully aware he might lose, and only opted not to run because “Jane Fonda told him she’d leave him if he did. So he didn’t — and she left him anyway.” This arch-conservative, entrepreneurial giant and military-school graduate had done a 180-degree turnaround to become one of America’s most iconoclastic liberals. It’s evident in the very symbols of his heroes that he keeps in his Atlanta office. Over the years, Horatio Nelson and Alexander the Great have been replaced by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. — whose Ebenezer Baptist Church, appropriately, is within walking distance of Turner’s base. ♦♦♦♦♦ Turner was twice divorced when he learned fonda had split with her second husband, liberal politician Tom Hayden. He’d briefly met her years earlier and admired what he saw, so he called her. At that time, the actress was too shattered to think of dating but suggested Turner phone again six months later.

He did so, to the day, and they embarked on a romance that would lead to marriage in 1991, when he was 53 and she was 54. She influenced him in “lots of ways,” he says. “She’s as opinionated as me, if not more. In areas like the status of women, she probably was even a little stronger than me, though I was always very much in favor of people’s rights and equal treatment for women." Fonda’s decision to leave him in 2001 was devastating. At the time of their divorce, Turner reportedly said it was fueled by her announcing, “I’ve become a Christian.” Their settlement, according to other reports, involved his paying her $40 million. And then he had to let her go. “I couldn’t do anything else. What am I supposed to do, sit down and cry? I did for six months,” he says. “And after that, you gotta go on.” It’s intriguing to compare their responses to the marriage.

At The Hollywood Reporter ’s Women in Entertainment breakfast in December, Fonda said she had spent too much of her life “being defined as so-and-so’s wife.” (She declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this article.) By contrast, “Ted’s still in love with her,” Johnson says. "I’ve thought many times he would love to have her back. They were such an unbelievable couple. It’s almost as though they discovered in each other the person who had the ultimate in shared values — not to mention great sex." The two still speak “about once a month,” Turner notes, praising her recent book, Prime Time. Rather than blame her, he blames himself, admitting life with him can be difficult: “[Jane said], ‘I want two homes — a winter home and a summer home; I don’t want 10.’ And she couldn’t take the travel. Really, it’s much harder for a woman than a man." Today, without Fonda, on some deep level Turner is alone — no matter his numerous loyalists, four girlfriends and dizzying accomplishments. It’s something he regrets, and that perhaps feeds his insecurity, evidence of which comes and goes throughout our conversation.

He constantly blurts out such things as, "I pushed up against the limits of what a human being could do. And look at my accomplishments. I mean, I won the America’s Cup; I won the World Series; I think I won over 1,200 prizes. I have 46 honorary degrees." "He is very insecure,” Johnson confides. “After he was named something like Time’s man of the year, he held up the magazine in front of several people and said, ‘See, Dad, I made it after all!'" It’s been nearly 50 years since his father died, and now Turner is starting to contemplate his own mortality. His daughter Laura says he speaks frequently of his funeral, repeatedly changing the plans — he’s talked of having Willie Nelson sing “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” or having his ashes scattered over his properties or being laid out Native American-style and “having the birds pick the skin from his bones.” "Most super-achievers don’t make it to 73,” Turner reflects. Once virulently anti-religious, doubt rather than certainty defines his thinking now. He calls himself “a little bit religious — that says it pretty well.

But I’d like to think there’s somebody looking after us." Jane Fonda: Ted Turner Is "My Favorite Ex-Husband" - Us Weekly Jane Fonda: Ted Turner Is "My Favorite Ex-Husband" October 20, 2012 @ 5:35 PM Ted Turner and Jane Fonda attend the 20th Annual Environmental Media Awards on October 16, 2010 . Credit: Rebecca Sapp/WireImage Jane Fonda is playing favorites. The screen legend, 74, recently attended the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention fundraiser in Atlanta. (Fonda founded G-CAPP in 1995 when the state had the highest teen birth rate in the United States; it has since been renamed the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential to reflect its physical health and nutrition initiatives.) "This year we wanted an event that allowed for a deeper discussion of the work that G-CAPP does and how it all began," Fonda explained in a recent blog post .

"That meant involving Ted [Turner], my favorite ex-husband, as it was he who inspired my creating G-CAPP almost 18 years ago." PHOTOS: Ageless A-listers The Monster-in-Law actress and the TV tycoon, 73, were married from 1991 to 2001. "We decided to throw an 'EmPower Party' at the Atlanta Aquarium and have a dialogue with Ted and me, moderated by our mutual friend, the incomparable Pat Mitchell," Fonda explained. Turner was also honored with "the inaugural 'Big Thinker' Award." The exes have remained amicable over the years and have attended several high-profile events together. PHOTOS: Sizzling seniors When Fonda, a political activist and fitness guru, appeared on Oprah's Master Class in January, she opened up about why her marriage to Turner failed. "He had 23 huge properties and a private plane that slept eight," she said.

"I knew that I would die married and rich, but not whole." After spending some time on her own, "I wasn't scared for the first time in my life to not be with a man, and that whatever lay in front of me, I would be able to do it as a whole person," the Klute actress added. "It was a seminal moment for me." Blame Jane: Ted Turner's son says Fonda made dad a lib | Fox News Blame Jane: Ted Turner's son says Fonda made dad a lib Published February 22, 2013 Facebook 0 Twitter 0 livefyre Email Print Congressional candidate Teddy Turner (l.) is conservative, and his father, media mogul Ted Turner is liberal, but the two are close. ((Teddy Turner for Congress, Reuters)) Teddy Turner, son of billionaire media mogul Ted Turner and Republican candidate for Congress, said his father’s marriage to Jane Fonda prompted his major left turn. “I was raised in a different time at the Turner household … a very conservative household with capitalism and all of that kind of stuff,” the younger Turner told Newsmax TV’s “The Steve Malzberg Show.” Teddy Turner is running for Congress in South Carolina, where he faces former Gov.

Mark Sanford in a Republican primary. His platform includes opposition to taxes and same-sex marriage and he is a global warming skeptic – all positions his father does not share. “Yes, I’m Teddy Turner,” he said at a recent Republican gathering. “You can’t pick your parents.” Ted Turner, who founded CNN and once owned the Atlanta Braves, married Fonda in 1991. The actress and workout guru, dubbed ‘Hanoi Jane’ for posing with a Viet Cong anti-aircraft gun in a misguided protest against the Vietnam War, apparently had an influence that outlasted their marriage. More On This...

Jane Fonda's marriage to Ted Turner 'ate her alive' reveals new book by star's adopted daughter | Daily Mail Online Next EXCLUSIVE: How Jane Fonda's marriage to Ted Turner 'ate her alive': New book by Oscar winner's adopted daughter reveals the terrible toll divorce to CNN founder took on star Mary Williams, 45, who came to know Fonda as 'mom' has penned The Lost Daughter charting her turbulent life with the Hollywood star Recollects how Fonda was 'shutting down emotionally' after her split with Turner, her third husband Recalls lavish parties with Hollywood A-List - including Sophia Loren, Robert DeNiro, Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones and even Desmond Tutu at Fonda's home Mary, the daughter of Black Panthers, threw back the life that Fonda had made for her but has recently been reconciled with the Oscar winner - and also with her real mother Ted Turner Biography - Childhood, Life Achievements & Timeline Business People Ted Turner Biography Ted Turner is a media tycoon who founded the cable news network CNN. This biography of Ted Turner provides detailed information about his childhood, life, achievements, works & timeline. Quick Facts Florence turner Spouses/Partners: Jane Fonda (m.

1991â2001), Jane Shirley Smith (m. 1965â1988), Julia Gale Nye (m. 1960â1964) children - PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Television Image Credit Robert Edward âTedâ Turner III is a media tycoon and the founder of the first ever 24-hour cable news network, CNN. He also has the credit of founding the independent television station WTBS which originated the concept of superstation in cable television. The successful businessman had made an early entry into the world of business. The son of a father who owned an advertising company, he started helping in his fatherâs business from a young age. Although his father was a successful businessman who provided well for his family, he suffered from bipolar disorder and was known to have extreme mood swings. In spite of being financially secure, young Ted had a difficult life. His father was physically abusive and ended up committing suicide when Ted was 24. After his fatherâs death he took over the business and drowned himself in work to cope with his grief. His efforts paid off and soon the business started earning huge profits.

He went on to acquire several other businesses and started the Turner Broadcasting System. He soon founded CNN, the first all-news television channel in the United States. The business mogul is also well-known for his philanthropic activities and contributed $ 1 billion to the United Nations which was used to create the United Nations Foundation. Childhood & Early Life He was the eldest son of Robert Edward Turner Jr. and Florence. His father was a successful businessman who owned Turner Advertising. In spite of being a good provider, Ted had a difficult childhood. Robert suffered from bipolar disorder and had extreme mood swings. He used to physically abuse Ted. His father went to serve in the Navy when World War II broke out and took his wife and daughter with him, leaving behind Ted. The young boy felt abandoned. He was sent to a boarding school at Cincinnati while his family was away. After returning from the war his father enrolled him at the Georgia Military Academy. He enrolled in Brown University in 1956 where his major was economics. However, he was expelled from the university for having a woman in his dormitory room. Career He joined his fatherâs business after being thrown out of the university. His father made him the assistant manager of Turner Advertisingâs Atlanta branch.

His company had taken huge debts and the pressure of it affected his fatherâs health. Suffering from bipolar disorder and unable to cope with the financial burdens, his father committed suicide in 1963 leaving Ted, just 24, as in charge of the indebted company. Ted threw himself in the work partly to deal with his grief and partly because of his ambitions. Soon the company paid off its debts and started registering good profits. By the late 1960s his company had grown a lot. After dealing in radio stations, he expanded into television and purchased a failing UHF station in Atlanta. He renamed his company to Turner Communications and renamed the station to WTCG. Initially he ran old movies and cartoons on the station. By the mid 1970s FCC regulations started permitting cable television services to transmit programming from remote stations. In 1976, the WTCG-TV Superstation began to broadcast old movies, comedy reruns, cartoons and sports specials nationwide to subscribers. The viewership of his channel grew manifold and soon he had 2 million subscribers and his net worth reached $100 million.

By the late 1970s, he renamed his company Turner Broadcasting System and WTCG as WTBS. By now he also owned the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks in order to provide programming for WTBS. He undertook his most ambitious venture in 1980. He launched a 24-hour all-news channel. At that time this move was criticized by media professionals, however he went ahead with the Cable News Network (CNN). The network started earning huge profits within five years and was expanded to include CNN Radio and CNN International. Over the 1980s and 1990s he established several other ventures, notably, Turner Entertainment Co. in 1986, Turner Network Television (TNT) in 1988, Cartoon Network in 1992 and Turner Classic Movies in 1994. A philanthropist, he founded the Better World Society for supporting nuclear disarmament in 1985 and Turner Foundation in 1990 for activities in environment. He also plays an active role in the United Nations Association. Major Works He is the founder of the 24-hour news channel CNN, the first all-news television channel in the United States.

The channel has numerous affiliates and is available in over 100 million U.S. households. He is a philanthropist who plays an active role in the United Nations Association. He donated $1 billion to the United Nations for creating the United Nations Foundation and serves on its board of directors. Awards & Achievements He received the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism which is given to individuals who have demonstrated exemplary service to humanity. The Franklin Institute awarded him the Bower Award for Business Leadership in 2006. Personal Life & Legacy He was married to Judy Nye from 1960 to 1964. His second marriage was to Jane Shirley Smith whom he wed in 1965 and divorced in 1988. He married actress Jane Fonda in 1991. This marriage ended in 2001. He has five children. Trivia This business magnate is also an accomplished sailor and an inductee of National Sailing Hall of Fame. Net Worth Ted Turner, the founder of the world famous news broadcast giant âCNNâ, has around $2.2 Billion worth of earnings.

Turner, who started his career by working as an Account Executive at the âTurner Advertising Companyâ, moved into the television business during the 1970âs. Later, Turner started a chain of business initiatives such as âCastle Rock entertainmentâ and âNew Line Cinemaâ, other than CNN. Translate this page to Spanish, French, Hindi, Portuguese Pictures of Ted Turner

Question: Who did Ted Turner, the media tycoon, marry in 1991?
Answer: Jane Fonda